Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and Kabbala Part 42

_Chaggigah_, fol. 14, col. 1.

There are seven hundred species of fish, eight hundred of locusts, twenty-four of birds that are unclean, while the species of birds that are clean cannot be numbered.

_Chullin_, fol. 63, col. 2.

"The same was Adino the Eznite," etc. (2 Sam. xxiii. 8). This mighty man when studying the law was as pliant as a worm; but when engaged in war he was as firm and unyielding as a tree; and when he discharged an arrow he killed eight hundred men at one shot.

_Moed Katon_, fol. 16, col. 2.

"Ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land" (Deut. iv. 26). The term soon uttered by the Lord of the Universe means eight hundred and fifty-two years.

_Sanhedrin_, fol. 38, col. 1.

There are nine hundred and three sorts of deaths in the world; for the expression occurs (Ps. lxviii. 20), "Issues of death." The numerical value of "issues" is nine hundred and three. The hardest of all deaths is by quinsy, and the easiest is the Divine kiss (of which Moses, Aaron, and Miriam died). Quinsy is like the forcible extraction of p.r.i.c.kly thorns from wool, or like a thick rope drawn through a small aperture; the kiss referred to is like the extracting of a hair from milk.

_Berachoth_, fol. 8, col. 1.

When Moses went up on high, the ministering angels asked, "What has one born of a woman to do among us?" "He has come to receive the law," was the Divine answer. "What!" they remonstrated again, "that cherished treasure which has lain with Thee for nine hundred and seventy-four generations before the world was created, art Thou about to bestow it upon flesh and blood? What is mortal man that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of earth that Thou thus visitest him? O Lord! our Lord! is not Thy name already sufficiently exalted in the earth? Confer Thy glory upon the heavens" (Ps. viii. 4, 6). The Holy One--blessed be He!--then called upon Moses to refute the objection of the envious angels. "I fear," pleaded he, "lest they consume me with the fiery breath of their mouth." Thereupon, by way of protection, he was bid approach and lay hold of the throne of G.o.d; as it is said (Job xxvi. 9), "He lays hold of the face of His throne and spreads His cloud over him." Thus encouraged, Moses went over the Decalogue, and demanded of the angels whether they had suffered an Egyptian bondage and dwelt among idolatrous nations, so as to require the first commandment; or were they so hardworked as to need a day of rest, etc., etc. Then the angels at once confessed that they were wrong in seeking to withhold the law from Israel, and they then repeated the words, "O Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth!" (Ps. viii. 9), omitting the words, "Confer Thy glory upon the heavens." And not only so, but they positively befriended Moses, and each of them revealed to him some useful secret; as it is said (Ps.

lxviii. 18), "Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast captured spoil, thou hast received gifts; because they have contemptuously called thee man."

_Shabbath_, fol. 88, col. 2.

Nine hundred and seventy-four generations before the world was created the law was written and deposited in the bosom of the Holy One--blessed be He!--and sang praises with the ministering angels.

_Avoth d'Rab. Nathan_, chap. 31.

If one is sick and at the point of death, he is expected to confess, for all confess who are about to suffer the last penalty of the law. When a man goes to the market place, let him consider himself as handed over to the custody of the officers of judgment. If he has a headache, let him deem himself fastened with a chain by the neck. If confined to his bed, let him regard himself as mounting the steps to be judged; for when this happens to him, he is saved from death only if he have competent advocates, and these advocates are repentance and good works. And if nine hundred and ninety-nine plead against him, and only one for him, he is saved; as it is said (Job x.x.xiii. 23), "If there be an interceding angel, one among a thousand to declare for man his uprightness, then He is gracious unto him and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit."

_Shabbath_, fol. 32, col. 1.

Rav Hunna says, "A quarrel is like a breach in the bank of a river; when it is once made it grows wider and wider." A certain man used to go about and say, "Blessed is he who submits to a reproach and is silent, for a hundred evils depart from him." Shemuel said to Rav Yehuda, "It is written in Scripture (Prov. xvii. 14), 'The beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water.'" Strife is the beginning of a hundred lawsuits.

_Sanhedrin_, fol. 7, col. 1.

When Solomon married the daughter of Pharaoh, she introduced to him a thousand different kinds of musical instruments, and taught him the chants to the various idols.

_Shabbath_, fol. 56, col. 2.

When Buneis, the son of Buneis, called on Rabbi (the Holy), the latter exclaimed, "Make way for one worth a hundred manahs!" Presently another visitor came, and Rabbi said, "Make way for one worth two hundred manahs." Upon which Rabbi Ishmael, the son of Rabbi Yossi, remonstrated, saying, "Rabbi, the father of the first-comer, owns a thousand ships at sea and a thousand towns ash.o.r.e!" "Well," replied Rabbi, "when thou seest his father, tell him to send his son better clad next time." Rabbi paid great respect to those that were rich, and so did Rabbi Akiva.

_Eiruvin_, fol. 86, col. 1.

Rabbi Elazer ben Charsom inherited from his father a thousand towns and a thousand ships, and yet he went about with a leather sack of flour at his back, roaming from town to town and from province to province in order to study the law. This great Rabbi never once set eye on his immense patrimony, for he was engaged in the study of the law all day and all night long. And so strange was he to his own servants, that they, on one occasion, not knowing who he was, pressed him against his will to do a day's work as a menial; and though he pleaded with them as a suppliant to be left alone to pursue his studies in the law, they refused, and swore, saying, "By the life of Rabbi Elazer ben Charsom, our master, we will not let thee go till thy task is completed." He then let himself be enforced rather than make himself known to them.

_Yoma_, fol. 35, col. 2.

The wife of Potiphar coaxed Joseph with loving words, but in vain. She then threatened to immure him in prison, but he replied (antic.i.p.ating Ps. cxlvi. 7), "The Lord looseth the prisoners." Then she said, "I will bow thee down with distress; I will blind thine eyes." He only answered (_ibid._, ver. 8), "The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind and raiseth them that are bowed down." She then tried to bribe him with a thousand talents of silver if he would comply with her request, but in vain.

Ibid.

A Midrash tells us that Potiphar's wife not only falsely accused Joseph herself, but that she also suborned several of her female friends to do likewise. The Book of Jasher, which embodies the Talmudic story quoted above, tells us that an infant in the cradle spoke up and testified to Joseph's innocence, and that while Joseph was in prison his inamorata daily visited him. More on this topic may be found in the Koran, chap. xii. The amours of Joseph and Zulieka, as told by the glib tongue of tradition, fitly find their consummation in marriage, and certain Moslems affect to see in all this an allegorical type of Divine love, an allegory which some other divines find in the Song of Solomon.

The thickness of the earth is a thousand paces or ells.

_Succah_, fol. 53, col. 2.

The crust of the earth as far as the abyss is a thousand ells, and the abyss under the earth is fifteen thousand. There is an upper and a lower abyss mentioned in Taanith, fol. 25, col. 2.

Riddia, the angel who has the command of the waters, and resides between the two abysses, says to the upper, "disperse thy waters," and to the lower, "let thy waters flow up."

Many may ask after thy peace, but tell thy secret only to one of a thousand.

_Yevamoth_, fol. 63, col. 2.

The Rabbis have taught that if the value of stolen property is a thousand, and the thief is only worth, say, five hundred, he is to be sold into slavery twice. But if the reverse, he is not to be sold at all.

_Kiddushin_, fol. 18, col. 2.

The Behemoth upon a thousand hills (Ps. l. 10), G.o.d created them male and female, but had they been allowed to propagate they would have destroyed the whole world. What did He do? He castrated the male and spayed the female, and then preserved them that they might serve for the righteous at the Messianic banquet; as it is said (Job xl. 16), "His strength is in his loins (i.e., the male), and his force in the navel of his belly" (i.e., the female).

_Bava Bathra_, fol. 74, col. 2.

This provision for the coming Messianic banquet is considered of sufficient importance to be mentioned year after year in the service for the Day of Atonement and also at the Feast of Tabernacles. The remark of D. Levi, that the feast here referred to is to be understood allegorically, involves rather sweeping consequences, as it is open to any one to annihilate many other expectations on the same principle.

The Holy One--blessed be He!--will add to Jerusalem gardens extending to a thousand times their numerical value, which equals one hundred and sixty-nine, etc.

Ibid., fol. 75, col. 2.

"Moreover Mana.s.seh shed innocent blood very much" (2 Kings xxi. 16).

Here (in Babylon) it is interpreted to mean that he murdered Isaiah, but in the West (i.e., in Palestine) they say that he made an image of the weight of a thousand men, which was the number he ma.s.sacred every day (as Rashi says, by the heaviness of its weight).

_Sanhedrin_, fol. 103, col. 2.

See Josephus, Antiq., Book X. chap, iii., sec. 1, for corroborative evidence. Tradition says that Mana.s.seh caused Isaiah to be sawn asunder with a wooden saw. (See also Yevamoth, fol. 49, col. 2; Sanhedrin, fol. 103, col. 2.)

Nowhere in the Talmud do we find the name of the great image here referred to. What if we christen it the "Juggernaut of the Talmud"? May the tradition not be a prelusion or a reflex of that man-crushing monster? Anyhow, scholars are aware of a community of no inconsiderable extent between the conceptions and legends of the Hindoos and the Rabbis. One notable contrast, however, between this Juggernaut and that of the Hindoos is, that whereas in both cases the innocent suffered for the guilty, in the former that sacrifices were exacted to propitiate Satan, while in the latter they were freely offered in supposed propitiation of the G.o.ds.

The food consumed by Og, king of Bashan, consisted of a thousand oxen and as many of all sorts of other beasts, and his drink consisted of a thousand measures, etc.

_Sophrim_, chap. 21, mish. 9.

Solomon made ten candelabra for the Temple; for each he set aside a thousand talents of gold, which he refined in a crucible until they were reduced to the weight of one talent.

_Menachoth_, fol. 29, col. 1.

There was an organ in the Temple which produced a thousand kinds of melody.

_Eirchin_, fol. 11 col. 1.

The Magrepha, with its ten pipes and its ten-times-ten various notes (Eirchin, fol. 10, col. 2, and fol. 11, col. 1), which was said to have been used in the Temple service, must have been an instrument far superior to any organ in use at the time elsewhere.